I'm not new to MW, but I mostly have used it to play Pathfinder. A writing community is a great find, so I'd be a fool to pass up a chance to use it as a resource. If this isn't the right place for such a post, I'm sure someone will give me directions...

I'm writing a short story (so far, if I get better, I may end up serializing it) about a guy who steals starships. I was originally inspired by a scene in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Zaphod and Ford admire ships in the parking lot of Milliways (the Restaurant at the End of the Universe) and end up making off with one. It reminded me of how people can admire sports cars, and movies like Gone in 60 Seconds (or others, I haven't seen Fast & Furious but that's how I picture it). So like a car thief, but because I'm not into cars, spaceships.

The story will come along nicely as I go, but I stink at naming things. I'm trying to create a world that has a grounding in our current reality, but in a distant enough future where interstellar travel is possible and has probably caused the names of some common terms to shift (possibly for astronomical reasons). So not Star Wars, and not really Star Trek either, possibly closest to Firefly in terms of atmosphere and setting.

I have placeholders in my text for some of the following:

A law-enforcement authority (one of multiple that don't share jurisdictions)

A verdant, forest covered planet

An aquatic planet

Time units roughly equivalent to weeks, days, hours

Names of 'days' within the 'week'

A starship manufacturer

I confess it feels weird sharing anything about an incomplete work, not to mention effectively crowd-sourcing any of the creative aspects, but I've gotten a bit stuck and I don't want so many placeholders in my text. Would anybody have any suggestions as to how I can make my world a little more concrete and workable? Even a few suggestions for names on the above list?

You don't have to go crazy. Some of those names might be fairly recognisable to us - the law-enforcement authority might just be called "the police" (or "The Gathlan Planet Police Department" or similar).

The main character is called Jace Jenkins.

The verdant, forest-covered planet (is it all forest-covered? How about the poles?) is called Thelk.

The aquatic planet is called Earth (ironically). It's not actually completely aquatic, it's about 1/3 land, but it's mostly aquatic.

Time units could just be weeks, days and hours. Or, if you want a more "modern" attempt, perhaps everything is done in 10s or 2s? There's no need for days to exist if you're not on Earth, but they could be "standard days" or "cycles" or something - perhaps everyone works in 20-hour cycles or whatever. Hours probably wouldn't need to change, though - they're pretty arbitrary as it is. Weeks might be "decacycles" (ten cycles) or something (which could then be slanged as "decs" or something).

Of course, the "days" are just numbered. Why make up silly names in this post-silly, scientific future?